hey it's dr amanda from street smile solutions street smile solutions.com and today we're going
to talk a little bit more about intraoral scanners specifically i get this question like a good three
times a week should i buy an itero is it worth the investment or should i buy another scanner and
this is a pretty loaded question that isn't really there's so many things you have to take into
account and i really can't answer that question for somebody um without really knowing their
practice what they're doing where their vision is what type of things they do so i'm going to go
over some of the highlights that i usually use to consult and guide doctors whether they want to buy
an eye tarot or a different type of scanner and really i think of it in two different camps it's
itero and everything else basically so i think for orthodontists obviously itero probably makes sense
um the most it definitely makes the most sense but for general and pediatric dentists it might
not so let's go over some of the at a high level some of the high points and the graphic here i put
here because i mean you need to compare apples to oranges right so i took that picture but okay so
first of all on the front end my question for you is what type of phone do you have do you have a
mac uh sorry mac do you have an ios an apple phone um or do you have an android right or a google
phone that's like tells me a little bit about type of person you are so i always ask that question
do you have an open phone like a unlocked phone or do you have a restricted phone like do you
join a plan so these this is how questions i ask to get to know doctors because how do you
feel about being owned by another company where you have to pay fees and they make all the rules
and there's a lot of rules if you're 100 all in only with invisalign that's all you do of course
you're gonna get itero that's a no-brainer but the vast majority of general and pediatric dentists
that's not all they're doing they're doing a lot of things with their scanner and it's from many
different things and some of the hoops you have to go through with the itero for other things besides
invisalign is is it worth it not to mention the additional fees you have to pay monthly
for everything storage everything like that so those are the things i don't like about
it obviously the initial cost the fees the hoops for anything that's not invisalign property it's
really easy to use if you're doing invisalign if you're doing other things it is a nightmare
and i'm going to say nightmare because if you've ever tried to export itero to other labs other
companies they make you go through the worst hoops and sometimes they tell you a lot of the customer
service people like tara tell you it's you can't which is bs but they can make it difficult for you
so people think that oh it's open i can do whatever whatever i want no you can't so
most dentists i know that do a lot of ortho and a lot of other stuff they get two scanners they use
diatero maybe they get a cheaper right arrow they use their tarot for their invisalign and they use
their other scanner for everything else because it's just much easier and you can get a used itera
you don't have to get the five the neri i mean so let's talk about the most let's talk about a
tarot at a high level let's talk about the most recent eye terrell and who might want that so
the most recent itero is cool because it has this carry detector it really really is cool i can and
it has a super teeny teeny little wand which is really great for pitot um older patients pedo
anyone with a small mouth the carriage detector is incredible and i can 100 see every pediatric
dentist getting it that makes sense because i mean goodness you don't have to take so many
x-rays right it's a lot of stuff you can see and see better than you can with an x-ray and it's
not invasive so and it pretty much blows parents away when they see it but you know it's expensive
um what else of course all the iterators have the oi sim i think at this point which is the
outcome simulator if you're doing any ortho it is extraordinarily powerful to have an eye
tarot because you're going to scan the case you know and remember scanning can be done by anyone
so if you can you can scan every patient that walks in the office and just show them hey
it takes a couple minutes you don't have to wait here's approximately
what the simulation looks like it looks kind of like an easy hard moderate case
you know it gives you some idea of direction that you're going and sometimes when they
see their teeth in really graphic real reasonable realistic graphic form they're like whoa you know
you just do it everyone that comes in you know and and even if they don't pull the trigger that day
they might pull the trigger in six months one year it's also a great way to document i mean you've
seen all my videos probably on why the why behind intraoral photos the inter itaro 5 is pretty much
taken into our photo so it's a lot more convenient because it's going to store in cloud storage
even just in terms of like retention and retainers um assuming you're okay with getting four sets of
vivera i don't love that about invisalign that you cannot i know that there's not that much
revenue for them in vivera retainers and you can get viveira retainers for patients that weren't
invisalign patients but you have to get four uppers and four lowers and a lot of patients just
want one so i wish that we could do you know just one but that's not possible right now but um just
retainers the opportunity with retention is huge in a gp practice huge because so many people lost
their retainers and they're like oh it's okay it's starting to shift well i don't think i want to
have aligners you just scan them for retention and then they might be like you know what it's only
five aligners i'm just gonna do it you know um so there's there's opportunity there as well and
you know it's gonna store that image of the final product in the cloud so if things shift later you
can always go back push a button and generate more retainers that can theoretically move the teeth
back if they use them with chewies and stuff like that or at least improve it a little bit
so there's a value in that too so anyways that is my pro iteral argument um all that but obviously
the carries detection and the small little one is only on the most recent one which is the most
expensive it's very expensive i don't know i don't want to quote prices because every time i
look there's different discounts and stuff so you have to call them and ask all i know is a couple
hundred dollars a month and monthly fees and it's not quite it's like nice it's on a cart and stuff
but it's not quite as portable as some other ones so you know you got to think about there's
a lot of stuff to think about okay so let's go over some of the other stuff okay so obviously
we talked about open scanners monthly fees how easy is it to export it you're not going to just
push a button and get an stl that you can send anywhere oh no oh no it's not going to happen so
if you have say a medit or a huron or a three well three shapes sometimes it's really really easy you
just export the stl and you just basically it's like an email you just drop it in you know to
any of these easy rx or anything like that and you can get aligners from a bazillion different places
except invisalign so as you guys know invisalign does not take pretty much with a few exceptions
anything else except for their own scanners of course smart right because it's a major revenue
stream they say it's not as accurate but that's we all call but bs on that i call vs on that so
it's it's a it's a monetary thing right but i still always feel bad for all these doctors
because before they did take them they bought it and then they just cut them off a few years ago
and that was kind of a jerky move but whatever um all right other things to think about the graphics
obviously i tarl the newest newest ones have really nice graphics but other ones do too so um
it's used to educate patients some there's some cheaper scanners out there that don't have that
good at graphics i mean like i try to stay on top of things but i think dental wings is not so great
um there's a few other ones anyways i don't want to say too much because people
send me nasty letters when i do um okay obviously for me the hugest deal is the
easy exporting integration open platforms in monthly fees that's a big deal i want it to
be easy easy easy and i tarot is only easy with invisalign um ease of use comfort and portability
a lot of the other ones are way more portable and entero's pretty easy to use the one thing
i don't like about itera 2 is that most people tell me that once they buy it it
takes forever to get their training session it's not like you get to buy it unbox it and
set it up that day and actually be able to use it unless you know what you're doing so
hooking it up training can be a little bit tricky some of the other ones you're ready to go in like
a day so that's kind of a hassle too it's a good question to ask um and obviously with any scanner
out there i just recommend that before you go invest in one you need to go to either a show or
actually do a demo where your you and your team are actually not watching someone do it
but you're actually doing it touching it doing it trying it how does your team feel about the
the way it feels in their hands is it too heavy is it too bulky is it too uncomfortable
what about tips too like some tips are disposable you know some are autoclavable how much is it
how easy is to break them how often you have to replace them how many uses do you get of each one
just things to think about um in terms of your own workflow because there's a lot of scanners that
have really expensive tips and if you autoclave them they're reusable if you ought to play them
wrong you break them it's expensive so things to think about too i mean how klutzy is your team
obviously disposable is nice but it doesn't sound like not so good for the environment so things to
think about um are you gonna be rolling this this contraption from up to up you're gonna be moving
it is it gonna be going from office to office are you going to have to put it on a network
all kinds of things is it cloud-based all kinds of things does it come with the console does it
come with the computer or can you is it just like a one that you can plug through a usb and just use
on any computer you know that's nice not all of them are like that and of course training repairs
warranty service and support there's a lot of ones that are being sold out there by bigger
companies but the reps really don't know how to use them so you know it's hard when something
breaks you can be down for weeks months so things i mean like my question is if something breaks
how quickly are you gonna get me a new one minutes hours days months weeks you know um
you have to wait for something to get shipped these are all things that you need to ask and
everyone's got a different policy so you want and i don't stay up to date on all
this so i just hear what i hear so i would say top three most people get is either itero medit
or three shape most people i know kind of fall into one of those categories
um yeah i mean that's pretty much it those are the things i mean obviously talk to your
if you're a general or pediatric dentist too talk to your labs that you work with
see what they prefer what's easy for them which ones for them seem to have the best outcomes um
you know software updates so you have to pay for it okay anyways you get the idea so there's
no wrong or right answer obviously remember that there's a lot of other aligner companies out there
that are willing to accept any scanner so you know they're because they don't only scan our
company of course um as long as it's you know it's of good quality so you know it's very convenient
and you can always have two scanners one for invisalign one for everything else you know and
like i always you know i'm a big fan of white label off-label aligners a lot cheaper
you're not gonna have a gigantic down payment that you have to pay you know for the doctor um so
you have better cash flow um so some patients are don't want branded they're not even interested in
branded aligners they think it's a rip off because they know that they're overpaying and if you
follow a lot of these forums you know you really should get on some of these patient-facing forums
for orthodontics for elainers for braces and just see what patients are saying because patients
know they're getting the markup here they know there's direct consumers companies many that are
out there charging two thousand dollars and granted they know they're not really paying
the doctor they're eliminating that but they kind of know what the price of the aligners are
and they know they're getting a crazy markup i was on one today and the patient was so mad
they i guess they only had ten aligners and i guess it might have been a light case but they
got charged five thousand dollars and i said hey well you know shop around not everyone's
gonna charge you that maybe you might have a good outcome but some people have a flat fee
for all their invisalign cases there's nothing wrong with that you know i'm assuming the doctor
was was a front you know that's great you got done in 10 aligners sometimes things go faster
than expected sometimes you know patients pay up front and they don't realize how easy their case
was you know but there's nothing wrong with that i don't think there's anything wrong with that
i mean i i'm all for a flat rate fee with invisalign i i don't i don't believe in two
different prices my fee is x 4900 5 000. if you have an easy case you want to try a wet
label or an off-label aligner system i feel really comfortable you'll get a great outcome and guess
what my fee for that is 3 000. so nothing wrong with that anyways all right thanks
so much thanks for listening and if you have any questions please go to straightsmilesolutions.com